I have a Peplink Balance 20 (Hardware Version 1) which, after a manual reset (>10 seconds hold and the status red light has gone from flashing to unlit), releases its configured IP address and admin password to the default. When I then make any changes via the webpage administration interface at 192.168.1.1, including ‘Restore Factory Settings’, and save them, I receive a confirmation that they have been saved but they are not enacted when I power down the router. I opened the router and replaced the battery, but changes still are not present after a power-down. Does anyone have any idea as to what I should do next? Thank you in advance!
Sounds like it is not able to write to the current flash. Try booting to the other firmware and that may allow you to save changes and also upgrade to newer firmware if necessary.
There isn’t a second firmware version on the Peplink. When I try to upgrade (or downgrade) using various firmware images (v5, v6, v7) downloaded from the Peplink site, I consistently receive an error that it is an invalid firmware image.
I was mistaken earlier: a manual reset only releases the admin password. The configured IP address does not return to the default of 192.168.1.1 but rather stays at its configured one (10.10.1.1). I have changed the IP address to 192.168.1.1 manually with the browser-based administration page and then changed my computer’s IPv4 properties to be part of that network, but the Peplink always loses that IP address once I reboot it.
Does it sound like there something wrong with the SD card within the Peplink? Would it be possible for me to copy over the SD card to a different one? Would the new one need to have any specific characteristics?
If you have any ideas, please feel welcome to share them all!
I have just tried switching from Safari to Firefox - with no success.
I suspect there is something wrong with the SD card because it all started by failing 8.0.0 upgrade and after longer reset (holding reset button for +30sec) it booted to secondary firmware.
I have just noticed that the router holds settings for as long as it is powered on - each reboot revert back to my older settings. Also I’m unable to do a factory reset.
Have you downloaded a diagnostics file from the router and sent
it to Peplink Support? If so, how have they responded?
I am assuming that you are no longer covered by a warranty, so
opening the router would void nothing. As the settings are not
being held, perhaps you would check the viability of the button
battery on the circuit board? If that has power and is supplying
enough volts, I wonder if it is possible to do a bit-by-bit copy
of the SD card to a replacement (one that is as close to identical
as the original as possible for maximum potential compatibility).
Please let me know how you get on and what you learn!
You read my mind or what?
That is exactly what I just did a minute ago!
The 3V battery was holding charge so I took the 4GB Sandisk SD card and locked it just to be double sure I won’t mess anything. Obviously macOS didn’t recognised the file system on the SD card so I booted to linux to find out the partition layout.
SD Card consists of:
two LUKS Encrypted partitions in 259MB size each
3.4GB extended partition
two standard ext3 partitions in 515MB size each
259MB swap partition
2.2GB ext3 partition.
Beside those two encrypted partitions (that most likely store both of the firmware filesystem) I was able to mount all of them with exception to the first 515MB one that was corrupted. The other 515MB partition revealed the place where the config, dhcpclient_name.dat, dhcp.lease files are stored and also an empty bundle folder.
I grabbed 16GB mini-SD card that I had in handy and used standard SD adapter to clone it.
I was about to recreate the first 515MB partition to find out that it is working a OK on the new SD card has files on it (there were planty of files related to 8.0.0 upgrade - that I won’t list here). Crossed my fingers and plugged it to the router and it worked!
I’m doing some more tests with flashing latest firmware, rebooting and resetting it with factory settings - so far so good.
Could you send me your img as running now ? I had same problem, Try to create again new SD card but my partitions are dead, dd command stop after few seconds can’t save partition correctly.
I create partition via fdisk /dev/sdb command, create 2 raw primary partition and 1 extended which contains 4 logicals partitions
